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Who Blows the Whistle on Corporate Fraud?

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Author Info
Alexander Dyck
Adair Morse
Luigi Zingales
Abstract

What external control mechanisms are most effective in detecting corporate fraud? To address this question we study in depth all reported cases of corporate fraud in companies with more than 750 million dollars in assets between 1996 and 2004. We find that fraud detection does not rely on one single mechanism, but on a wide range of, often improbable, actors. Only 6% of the frauds are revealed by the SEC and 14% by the auditors. More important monitors are media (14%), industry regulators (16%), and employees (19%). Before SOX, only 35% of the cases were discovered by actors with an explicit mandate. After SOX, the performance of mandated actors improved, but still account for only slightly more than 50% of the cases. We find that monetary incentives for detection in frauds against the government influence detection without increasing frivolous suits, suggesting gains from extending such incentives to corporate fraud more generally.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 12882.

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Date of creation: Feb 2007
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12882

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G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance

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  1. Alexander Dyck & Natalya Volchkova & Luigi Zingales, 2006. "The Corporate Governance Role of the Media: Evidence from Russia," NBER Working Papers 12525, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Rafael Porta & Florencio Lopez-De-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2006. "What Works in Securities Laws?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 1-32, 02. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Burns, Natasha & Kedia, Simi, 2006. "The impact of performance-based compensation on misreporting," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 35-67, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Morck, Randall & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1988. "Management ownership and market valuation : An empirical analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 293-315, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Winston, Clifford, 1998. "U.S. Industry Adjustment to Economic Deregulation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 89-110, Summer. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Paul M. Healy & Krishna G. Palepu, 2003. "The Fall of Enron," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 3-26, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Diamond, Douglas W. & Verrecchia, Robert E., 1987. "Constraints on short-selling and asset price adjustment to private information," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 277-311, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Dyck, Alexander & Volchkova, Natalya & Zingales, Luigi, 2007. "The Corporate Governance Role of the Media: Evidence from Russia," Working Papers 07-1, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Nicola Lacetera & Lorenzo Zirulia, 2008. "The Economics of Scientific Misconduct," CESPRI Working Papers 215, CESPRI, Centre for Research on Innovation and Internationalisation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy, revised Apr 2008. [Downloadable!]
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